The Dictionary of Human Geography

revolutionary novelty. Both accounts can be
heard at the same time (as in some discussions
of GM crops in the USA) when the aim is to
make products appear at once ‘substantially
equivalent’ to what has gone beforeandradic-
ally new and worthy of patents and payment.
Even if one sticks with the restricted take on
biotechnology, the term is used to cover a
diverse range of activities. The colour-coded
categorization of biotechnology in common
use gives some sense of this:

(1) Red signifies biotechnology as applied to
medical processes. This can include the
genetic modification of bacteria and
yeast in the development of drugs or the
direct manipulation of a person’s gen-
ome in an attempt to prevent or cure
disease.
(2) Green signifies biotechnology as applied
to agricultural processes. Most notably
(and controversially), this includes the
development of transgenic plants specif-
ically designed (for example) to express
or be resistant to a certain pesticide.
(3) White (sometimes) grey signifies bio-
technology as applied to industrial pro-
cesses. Examples here include growing
organisms engineered to produce a use-
ful chemical, or bacteria that help break
down certain chemicals (as used to clear
up oil spills).
(4) Blue, finally, signifies biotechnology as
applied to aquatic, coastal or marine
processes. Little used as yet but a rap-
idly expanding field, applications here
focus on extracting useful substances
from water-dwelling bacteria and other
organisms.

Biotechnology in all its hues has long been
identified as an area that provides both chal-
lenges and opportunities forgeography(Katz
and Kirby, 1991). Following a series of more
recent provocations (e.g.Castree, 1999c; What-
more, 1999a; Spencer and Whatmore, 2001),
a body of literature is now finally emerging
within the discipline that is taking these oppor-
tunities and challenges seriously – see, for ex-
ample, the articles collected in special issues
edited by Bridge, Marsden and McManus
(2003) and Greenhough and Roe (2006).
Even more encouragingly, the best of this work
is eschewing the familiar temptations
of economic reductionism or technological
determinism in favour of developing conceptu-
ally informed, empirically rich accounts of what
happens when something new (an object or a

technique) is added to an already full world.

Thus attention is paid at once to the new spaces

of transformation and circulation involving bio-

technology and alsothequestionsofcoexistence

of existing and novel ways of life that such new

spaces raise. nb

Suggested reading

Bingham (2006); Parry (2004).

blockbusting A tactic engaged by American

land speculators to buy housing units and

then rent or sell them at inflated prices. In

cities such as Chicago, industrialization,

African-Americanmigrationto northern cit-

ies and racialsegregationresulted in a grow-

ing, but spatially contained, African-American

population (Philpott, 1991 [1978]). In White

neighbourhoods adjacent to this African-

Americanghetto, real estate agents would

sell or rent a vacant unit to an African-

American household, then use fear tactics

about lower home values and racial change to

persuade white homeowners to sell. Units

would then be sold or rented to African-

American households at grossly inflated

prices. The result spatially expanded the

ghetto(Hirsch, 1983). dgm

Suggested reading

Hirsch (1983).

body A rapidly growing field withingeog-

raphydeals with social and spatial concep-

tions of the human body – often located in

the tension between the body as a social and

a biological phenomenon. This upsurge of

interest in the body does not confine itself to

geography, but occurs all over the social sci-

ences andhumanities. The background might

be found in a mixture of circumstances. Some

authors refer it to changes in the cultural land-

scape of latemodernity, involving a rise of

consumer culture and self-expression. Others

regard it primarily as a theoretical interven-

tion, rectifying a former deficiency in social

theory. And for still others,feminismis held

responsible for putting the body on the intel-

lectual map. Initially, there is a division in the

social theoryof the body, one that is often

attributed to Maurice Merleau-Ponty and

Michel Foucault, respectively. On the one

side stand analyses of the body as lived, active

and generative, and on the other side studies

of the body as acted upon, as historically

inscribed from without. Still other approaches

are informed by psychoanalytic theory.

These different approaches are mostly

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_B Final Proof page 50 31.3.2009 11:01am

BLOCKBUSTING